quote:Originally posted by romanesque: The battle between religion and science is entirely ideological and mostly orthogonal. What polemicists generally mean by "science" is the metaphysical assumption that we exist in a purposeless universe with immutable laws that emerged from nowhere for unknown reasons, and in which we are biological robots at the whim of genetics erroneously imagining that we are conscious. Or as the late Terence McKenna put it, "give us one free miracle and we'll explain the rest".

It's a position built on a mountain of assumptions, and tells people they are unreliable witnesses (unless they're in a laboratory) and should only trust a priesthood of materialists in their assessment of the abstract platonic reality in which we imagine we exist. It's fundamentalism the equal of any screwball religious sect, but presented by in a suitably patrician tone people lap it up because it saves thinking about the issue.

Well, that's scientism, not science. Most of the scientists I know don't go in for metaphysics, really, since science is built on observations.

In fact, Bacon was one of the thinkers who advised people to stop talking about Aristotle, and rely on the senses. You can do this, while being a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever.

Posted
I think you're being optimistic. UK science education is predicated on an assumption of materialism, and the philosophy of science rarely if ever gets a look in on science undergraduate courses. Overseas non-Christian graduates are more likely to hang on to forms of belief concurrent with their scientific discipline, but British scientists are overwhelmingly on message with a Dawkinsian world view.

New Atheism has made all religious faith synonymous with young earth creationism, violence and medievalism, and vocal objections to that parody are the exception within the science community.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

Posted
I appreciate your robust response and hope moderators don't mind if I reply in kind at some point. Here's a series of podcasts by the Anglican biologist Rupert Sheldrake in which he explores the relationship between science and belief of various kinds in detail. Some explore science education.

I recommend:Is materialism inherently atheistic?The Hidden God of AtheismThe Spirituality of Popular ScienceWhat the Greeks can teach usBeyond Physicalism

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: I can offer a number of references, but if you work in the physical sciences I'm shocked that they don't resonate in any way.

Well, to take one point, I have quite a lot of friends who are atheists, although I don't know if they would describe themselves as New, but your claim that religious belief is equated with YEC, violence and medievalism, seems wide of the mark to me. You also say 'all religious faith', even more of an over-generalization.

Posted
This takes us back to methodological and metaphysical materialism. Are young scientists really taught that matter is all there is, and religion is bollocks? This is quite different from an instrumental materialism, which doesn't delve into metaphysics.

I was actually taught (on a postgrad history of ideas course) that science does not set out to describe truth or reality, but I accept that there are probably wide variations.

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: I can offer a number of references, but if you work in the physical sciences I'm shocked that they don't resonate in any way.

Well, to take one point, I have quite a lot of friends who are atheists, although I don't know if they would describe themselves as New, but your claim that religious belief is equated with YEC, violence and medievalism, seems wide of the mark to me. You also say 'all religious faith', even more of an over-generalization.

In fact, most of the atheists that I know are weary of Dawkins.

If you ask most atheists to explain why they are atheists, they will almost without exception claim that materialism/physicalism exhausts the possibilities for reality without the necessity for a deity. I'm discounting instinctive atheists who are happy to leave things at "it's all bollox, innit" and eschew any reflection on the matter.

The mind set that claims we are epiphenomenally conscious observers of a reality that is exclusively machine like, has been the dominant purview of most science, with the possible exception of quantum physics which privileges the observer in a novel way. Since 9/11 in particular, polemical atheism of the kind propounded by Sean Carroll, Jerry Coyne, Richard Dawkins, Martin Gardner, P Z Myers, Michael Shermer and Neil deGrasse Tyson has sought to equivalence all non-materialistic views of reality as a foothold for the Inquisition. This suspicion of the non-physical makes scientists keep their heads down and allow the materialism paradigm to dominate the discourse. A few scientists are happy to navigate other waters but they tend to be established names who don't mind the inevitable crank accusations that follow. It's clear that some disciplines cannot sustain the machine analogy indefinitely, but as Max Planck said, science does not progress by convincing doubters, but because a new generation emerge who are familiar with the material. It advances "one funeral at a time".
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:This suspicion of the non-physical makes scientists keep their heads down and allow the materialism paradigm to dominate the discourse.

I'd argue it's more a suspicion of the non-testable keeps scientists in the realm of materialism. It's easy to demonstrate that a magnetic field will deflect an electron. It's impossible to create a test to answer the question of whether electrons are deflected by a magnetic field because God wills magnetic fields to deflect electrons.

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:This suspicion of the non-physical makes scientists keep their heads down and allow the materialism paradigm to dominate the discourse.

I'd argue it's more a suspicion of the non-testable keeps scientists in the realm of materialism. It's easy to demonstrate that a magnetic field will deflect an electron. It's impossible to create a test to answer the question of whether electrons are deflected by a magnetic field because God wills magnetic fields to deflect electrons.

The question is whether the billiard ball view of reality exhausts all there is to say about it. A good scientist keeps a completely open mind, limiting him/herself to the data and not extrapolating further than its immediate implications. Unfortunately that model does not typify the public face of science, and political materialists like Richard Dawkins are given prime time TV programmes and book deals to proclaim nonsense like science should dictate morality and people who don't terminate disabled children are irresponsible.

Within that world view, the one where we only imagine we are conscious and he cannot condemn murder on moral grounds, the blurring of materialism and morality makes perfect sense, because only the first is real. We really are only a collection of genes and synapses programmed by something called memes (an idea borrowed wholesale from semiotics and with no scientific application to biology) to reproduce. So looking for a phenomenon like consciousness (individual or deistic) is a fool's errand because science tells us it cannot exist.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:The question is whether the billiard ball view of reality exhausts all there is to say about it. A good scientist keeps a completely open mind, limiting him/herself to the data and not extrapolating further than its immediate implications.

I have to disagree here. Crafting new hypotheses in advance of data is a crucial step in the scientific process. I'd say it's a particularly bad scientist who never crafts a speculative hypothesis.

Posted
It may be if the scientist is scrupulous in the scope of its implications, but becomes pseudoscience if he publishes what he expects to find. An example of this is the "file draw effect" whereby scientists only publish 5%-10% of their data, the stuff that matches their predictions. A pharmaceutical company recently decided to test 50 of the main experiments that comprise biomedical science and 45 were found to be non-replicable - 90% were wrong. People publish their best results and filed the rest away. Another company found this unlikely and did their own replication experiments with very similar result, most was duff science.

It's difficult to know how widespread such practice is within the material sciences, but I expect it's more common than most people imagine, as tame peer reviewers underwrite experiments that confirm what they expect to find. This has called for demands for data to be published on an on-going basis with a time limit set on its conclusions.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: It may be if the scientist is scrupulous in the scope of its implications, but becomes pseudoscience if he publishes what he expects to find.

So, you would consider a theorist publishing her new idea as pseudoscience just because she may not have the expertise or access to the equipment needed to test it? So, a potentially useful insight remains hidden and unpublished? Scientists publish what they find, though I know from experience it's very much easier to write a paper reporting an experiment that has results in line with the expectation than one where the results are not what was sought (or, indeed something ground breaking found fortuitously).

quote:An example of this is the "file draw effect" whereby scientists only publish 5%-10% of their data, the stuff that matches their predictions.

I guess most of those here who are practicing scientists, especially in universities, have attended courses on research integrity. Both universities I've been at in the last few years have not only had such courses, but they're compulsory for all research staff.

Selectiveness in data used in publications is one of the things that gets covered in such courses, as a clear example of a practice that is unethical. It happens not because there is a flaw in the scientific method, but because scientists are human and as flawed as all other humans. Positive results are easier to publish (for a start actually writing the paper is much easier), and usually generate more citations (which is important when you have stupid politicians decide that citation metrics will be used to judge the quality of research and hence whether it will be financially supported - which, again, is nothing to do with the scientific method). With the increasing use of online publication and the ready availability of data repositories the full data sets of experiments are increasingly becoming widely available (and, many journals will now reject a paper out of hand if the source data is not deposited either with the journal or some other open access repository). Which doesn't address the difficulties of publishing null results, but is a step in the right direction of addressing the file draw effect. The biggest difficulty is that there are a wide range of options as to why an experiment didn't work - the conditions where not optimised, the background noise was too large to see the effect, a piece of equipment was broken and not noticed, there was a flaw in the analysis, etc ... and at the end of the list the hypothesis being tested is flawed. It's almost impossible to discuss all of those possibilities in a paper (though one should be able to check the analysis and equipment).

--------------------Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged

Posted
"So, you would consider a theorist publishing her new idea as pseudoscience just because she may not have the expertise or access to the equipment needed to test it? So, a potentially useful insight remains hidden and unpublished?"

Nothing I've said remotely supports that assertion, and I sincerely hope you don't apply such wild corollaries to your scientific conclusions. It's a step up from your previous slur, but only a small one.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: I appreciate your robust response and hope moderators don't mind if I reply in kind at some point. Here's a series of podcasts by the Anglican biologist Rupert Sheldrake

Who, 'nuff said. If Sheldrake is your model, then I see a massive part of why your arguments so far are bollocks.Parapsychology is an amazing phenomenon in that only believers ever see positive results and those results are "mysteriously" never replicable when anyone else is looking.It is, ironically, subject to the very fault you accuse science of. Beginning with a belief and accepting only that which enforces it.

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: "So, you would consider a theorist publishing her new idea as pseudoscience just because she may not have the expertise or access to the equipment needed to test it? So, a potentially useful insight remains hidden and unpublished?"

Nothing I've said remotely supports that assertion, and I sincerely hope you don't apply such wild corollaries to your scientific conclusions. It's a step up from your previous slur, but only a small one.

You were (I assumed) responding to the previous comment by Crœsos

quote:Crafting new hypotheses in advance of data is a crucial step in the scientific process. I'd say it's a particularly bad scientist who never crafts a speculative hypothesis.

claiming that

quote:It may be if the scientist is scrupulous in the scope of its implications, but becomes pseudoscience if he publishes what he expects to find.

Which certainly looks like you're criticising the publication of untested hypotheses as pseudo-science. Perhaps you should just clarify what you mean by pseudoscience then, and how your comment relates to the statement it appeared to be addressing.

--------------------Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: I appreciate your robust response and hope moderators don't mind if I reply in kind at some point. Here's a series of podcasts by the Anglican biologist Rupert Sheldrake

Who, 'nuff said. If Sheldrake is your model, then I see a massive part of why your arguments so far are bollocks.Parapsychology is an amazing phenomenon in that only believers ever see positive results and those results are "mysteriously" never replicable when anyone else is looking.It is, ironically, subject to the very fault you accuse science of. Beginning with a belief and accepting only that which enforces it.

That contravenes too many logical fallacies to list, but is consistent with the general tone of the internet. Poisoning the well covers most of it, with a hint of No True Scotsman. Well done.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: "So, you would consider a theorist publishing her new idea as pseudoscience just because she may not have the expertise or access to the equipment needed to test it? So, a potentially useful insight remains hidden and unpublished?"

Nothing I've said remotely supports that assertion, and I sincerely hope you don't apply such wild corollaries to your scientific conclusions. It's a step up from your previous slur, but only a small one.

You were (I assumed) responding to the previous comment by Crœsos

quote:Crafting new hypotheses in advance of data is a crucial step in the scientific process. I'd say it's a particularly bad scientist who never crafts a speculative hypothesis.

claiming that

quote:It may be if the scientist is scrupulous in the scope of its implications, but becomes pseudoscience if he publishes what he expects to find.

Which certainly looks like you're criticising the publication of untested hypotheses as pseudo-science. Perhaps you should just clarify what you mean by pseudoscience then, and how your comment relates to the statement it appeared to be addressing.

It was clear who made the quote and if you really are a scientist the implications of what I wrote will be familiar to you. Perhaps you'll recommend the Open Science framework to your students where everything can't be dismissed as dirty test tubes or talking "bollocks".
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: That contravenes too many logical fallacies to list, but is consistent with the general tone of the internet. Poisoning the well covers most of it,

Saying that an idea is wrong because of the source is a loony can be Poisoning the Well. However, questioning the rigour and integrity of a person on a particular subject isn't necessarily. Parapsychology is wishful thinking, for all intents and purposes, until verifiable results are demonstrated.Morphic resonance is an idea with insufficient evidence.All this would suggest that Sheldrake is questionable in his assertions relating to scientific methods, and, since he appears to be the base of your assertions, it is reasonable to question those as well.

Darwinism is accepted by a myriad of scientists who belong to a myriad of faiths. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Likely because they understand that faith and science are separate things.Science is hypothesis, experimentation, observation and theory.Faith is simply belief. Doesn't mean it is wrong, doesn't mean it is right. It means that it is outside of proofs.

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: That contravenes too many logical fallacies to list, but is consistent with the general tone of the internet. Poisoning the well covers most of it,

Saying that an idea is wrong because of the source is a loony can be Poisoning the Well. However, questioning the rigour and integrity of a person on a particular subject isn't necessarily. Parapsychology is wishful thinking, for all intents and purposes, until verifiable results are demonstrated.Morphic resonance is an idea with insufficient evidence.All this would suggest that Sheldrake is questionable in his assertions relating to scientific methods, and, since he appears to be the base of your assertions, it is reasonable to question those as well.

Darwinism is accepted by a myriad of scientists who belong to a myriad of faiths. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Likely because they understand that faith and science are separate things.Science is hypothesis, experimentation, observation and theory.Faith is simply belief. Doesn't mean it is wrong, doesn't mean it is right. It means that it is outside of proofs.

Yeah, I mean, Christianity and the supernatural, you couldn't make the shit up.

You are Bishop David Jenkins and I claim my five pounds.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: That contravenes too many logical fallacies to list, but is consistent with the general tone of the internet. Poisoning the well covers most of it,

Saying that an idea is wrong because of the source is a loony can be Poisoning the Well. However, questioning the rigour and integrity of a person on a particular subject isn't necessarily. Parapsychology is wishful thinking, for all intents and purposes, until verifiable results are demonstrated.Morphic resonance is an idea with insufficient evidence.All this would suggest that Sheldrake is questionable in his assertions relating to scientific methods, and, since he appears to be the base of your assertions, it is reasonable to question those as well.

Darwinism is accepted by a myriad of scientists who belong to a myriad of faiths. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc. Likely because they understand that faith and science are separate things.Science is hypothesis, experimentation, observation and theory.Faith is simply belief. Doesn't mean it is wrong, doesn't mean it is right. It means that it is outside of proofs.

Ye Gods, it would be nice if you didn't require other people to do homework to illustrate your argument.Which, is what? It appears to be that science is flawed, but the studies of that which has little or no evidence isn't. And what does this have to do with Darwinism, other than tangentially?

Posted
Faith and science are sometimes separate, other times not. If you're testing the validity of the Dead Sea scrolls you'd better have a little physics and chemistry to fall back on. If you want to know which gospels are consistent, you'll need to cross reference a whole heap of data that comes under social science. You may even require a knowledge of theology, a study of nothing as Richard Dawkins' described it.

You guys remind me of a kitsch postcard of the Ascension I once saw, where a rigid Jesus rises at 45 degrees with a jet exhaust emerging from his toga. Literalism gone mad.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

Ye Gods, it would be nice if you didn't require other people to do homework to illustrate your argument.Which, is what? It appears to be that science is flawed, but the studies of that which has little or no evidence isn't. And what does this have to do with Darwinism, other than tangentially?

Yebbut, studying the natural world is fraught with difficulty, because of subjective error and bias, blah blah blah, but studying the supernatural is easy, because all you have to do is guess. You might have to back your guess up, but there's always another guess.

Ye Gods, it would be nice if you didn't require other people to do homework to illustrate your argument.Which, is what? It appears to be that science is flawed, but the studies of that which has little or no evidence isn't. And what does this have to do with Darwinism, other than tangentially?

When dealing with people who both snippy and shrill I find it easier to provide them with something to chew on so we're on the same page, than knock insults back and forth. As I said, for people who are seriously interested and understand the implications for Darwinism of the influence of mind, rather than the junk science of memes, the videos bear watching. It's not my job to joint the dots for those who don't even want to click on a link.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Yebbut, studying the natural world is fraught with difficulty, because of subjective error and bias, blah blah blah, but studying the supernatural is easy, because all you have to do is guess. You might have to back your guess up, but there's always another guess.

Sorry, is this a Christian website or a The Skeptic? Assuming the first, a load of stuff happened between a virgin birth and a veridical intact bodily ascension. If you think water and wine, loaves and fishes, and reanimating dead people is a trope, a metaphor, a synecdoche, then consciousness studies may be pearls before swine.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

Ye Gods, it would be nice if you didn't require other people to do homework to illustrate your argument.Which, is what? It appears to be that science is flawed, but the studies of that which has little or no evidence isn't. And what does this have to do with Darwinism, other than tangentially?

When dealing with people who both snippy and shrill I find it easier to provide them with something to chew on so we're on the same page, than knock insults back and forth. As I said, for people who are seriously interested and understand the implications for Darwinism of the influence of mind, rather than the junk science of memes, the videos bear watching. It's not my job to joint the dots for those who don't even want to click on a link.

I've already refuted all your points. Not so much in the sense of actually offering any coherent argument or comprehensible points, but in a vague and "non-material" way. It's not my job to "joint the dots" or "construct an argument" or "be coherent" for those who are unwilling to do those things on my behalf. Seriously, the only thing standing in the way of your understanding is your stubborn unwillingness to conduct my half of the discussion for me. [/snark]

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:Sorry, is this a Christian website or a The Skeptic?

Can you make up your mind? Or is it that you "don't believe in theocracies, at least outside heaven or the internet"? Exactly where do you say the boundaries of acceptable dogma and doctrine are? And exactly why do you think you're owed an argument that doesn't stray outside you preferred bounds?

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:Sorry, is this a Christian website or a The Skeptic?

Can you make up your mind? Or is it that you "don't believe in theocracies, at least outside heaven or the internet"? Exactly where do you say the boundaries of acceptable dogma and doctrine are? And exactly why do you think you're owed an argument that doesn't stray outside you preferred bounds?

It's a serious question. If someone self identifies as a Christian I assume a belief in the supernatural until they state otherwise. Therefore concepts like conscious non-locality isn't such a leap. If you think all religion is bollocks - to use the word of the day - then I can't be arsed arguing fundamentals.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque:Sorry, is this a Christian website or a The Skeptic?

Can you make up your mind? Or is it that you "don't believe in theocracies, at least outside heaven or the internet"? Exactly where do you say the boundaries of acceptable dogma and doctrine are? And exactly why do you think you're owed an argument that doesn't stray outside you preferred bounds?

It's a serious question. If someone self identifies as a Christian I assume a belief in the supernatural until they state otherwise. Therefore concepts like conscious non-locality isn't such a leap. If you think all religion is bollocks - to use the word of the day - then I can't be arsed arguing fundamentals.

False dichotomy. There are plenty of people who are not Christian, but who don't think religion is bollocks. Hey, I'm one of them.

Ye Gods, it would be nice if you didn't require other people to do homework to illustrate your argument.Which, is what? It appears to be that science is flawed, but the studies of that which has little or no evidence isn't. And what does this have to do with Darwinism, other than tangentially?

When dealing with people who both snippy and shrill I find it easier to provide them with something to chew on so we're on the same page, than knock insults back and forth. As I said, for people who are seriously interested and understand the implications for Darwinism of the influence of mind, rather than the junk science of memes, the videos bear watching. It's not my job to joint the dots for those who don't even want to click on a link.

I've already refuted all your points. Not so much in the sense of actually offering any coherent argument or comprehensible points, but in a vague and "non-material" way. It's not my job to "joint the dots" or "construct an argument" or "be coherent" for those who are unwilling to do those things on my behalf. Seriously, the only thing standing in the way of your understanding is your stubborn unwillingness to conduct my half of the discussion for me. [/snark]

You don't want to look at links because it slows down the sniping. I don't want to look at the evidence because I already know the answer, is not refuting anything, it's using an internet forum as an extension of the playground.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: Faith and science are sometimes separate, other times not.

So, when not?

quote: If you're testing the validity of the Dead Sea scrolls you'd better have a little physics and chemistry to fall back on.

This is about when and who and nothing regrading the veracity of the writing itself. Still separate from faith.

quote: If you want to know which gospels are consistent, you'll need to cross reference a whole heap of data that comes under social science. You may even require a knowledge of theology,

The social science aspect come into play mostly outside of faith. Inside of faith it should, but rarely seems to.

quote:You guys remind me of a kitsch postcard of the Ascension I once saw, where a rigid Jesus rises at 45 degrees with a jet exhaust emerging from his toga. Literalism gone mad.

Yeah, that's us.

You're confusing faith with blind faith. Are you a Christian? If the answer is yes I'm happy to engage. If it's no Reddit offers a better class of abuse for God-bothering.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

Posted
hostingThere seem to be a series of personal attacks on this thread which will take me time to sort out and to warn the correct people. Thread is closed till I adjudicate.Louise Dead Horses Host

Romanesque, you’re relatively new but need to understand that you’ve crossed the line completely for how we define personal attack on the boards outside Hell. You’ve made a succession of personal attacks which can only be made on the Hell board. Making such attacks on the boards outside Hell is grounds for suspension or banning. The lines here may be different to those you are used to - so please read carefully.

Attacks which are not allowed on this board and must be kept to the Hell Board

Impugning an individual shipmate’s morals/integrity as a christian or scientist = personal attack, must be done on the Hell Board and not done here.

‘You are Bishop David Jenkins and I claim my five pounds.” This is a personal insult - it belongs on the Hell Board.

Another out of bounds personal attack - “When dealing with people who both snippy and shrill I find it easier to provide them with something to chew on so we're on the same page, than knock insults back and forth.” - this sort of personal attack will lead to banning or suspension if posted outside the Hell Board.

Attacks on the other posters on the thread as shipmates- “You guys remind me of a kitsch postcard of the Ascension I once saw, where a rigid Jesus rises at 45 degrees with a jet exhaust emerging from his toga. Literalism gone mad.”

Please read the board rules:

quote:3. Attack the issue, not the person

Name-calling and personal insults are only allowed in Hell. Attacks outside of Hell are grounds for suspension or banning.

4. If you must get personal, take it to Hell

If you get into a personality conflict with other shipmates, you have two simple choices: end the argument or take it to Hell.

Please remember that host rulings are not discussed here - if people want to query or discuss host rulings they must do so on The Styx Board and not here.

Can I ask other posters not to reply in kind? Lil Buddha please regard this as a personal conflict which must be stopped or taken to Hell. Please don’t reply in personal terms to any attacks. Similarly - Romanesque you have got far too personal with Alan Cresswell and Lil Buddha and need to stop the personal conflicts or start a thread in Hell to carry them on.

Croesos putting a smiley face on and '/snark' doesn’t magically stop something from being personal attack. Please take it to Hell and do not make personal attacks here.

If you are more personally annoyed with another poster and their attitude than you are interested in the general topic of discussion - please consider whether you ought to start a thread in Hell and post there and not here.

Can people either dial back the personal content here, or start a Hell thread please?

Posted
Ok, let me make myself clear so I can be reprimanded or banned or whatever for things I have done and think rather than things I haven't or don't.

First, my attack wasn't on science which I've made clear is an utterly blameless methodology concerned with forming conclusions about the physical world. My attack was on philosophical materialism which in many peoples' minds is synonymous with science. It isn't my fault that people conflate those two things, indeed there's a political drive to ensure the lines are deliberately blurred, but they are different.

Materialism is the philosophical position that there is only matter. If people make room for mind, consciousness as more than an illusion, deities or the supernatural in any way, they are not materialists, and my rebuke is entirely to those who those who present that philosophical position as beyond intellectual reproach. My argument isn't with atheists, it's with people who present materialism as a justification for atheism, especially when it involves condescension towards alternative views as ignorant. I have no interest in using the board as a ministry to sceptics, or indulging in Christian apologetics, I want to knock ideas around among fellow believers of any stripe. If Dead Horses is a sceptical materialist bulwark in what I took to be an Anglican website, I'll save myself a heap of time by avoiding it entirely, and if the entire board has succumbed to lifestyle scepticism I'm happy to disappear.

If people care to look, at no point have I used insults unless people have insulted me first, and mostly not then. The David Jenkins joke was pointed at someone who thought the whole idea of the supernatural preposterous, which is still an outlier among Christians thought, but was offered as axiomatic, and in an openly snippy way. I was asked to support my "generalities" and when I offered links was accused of giving homework. Some ideas can't be reduced to sound bites for general entertainment.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: my attack wasn't on science which I've made clear is an utterly blameless methodology concerned with forming conclusions about the physical world. My attack was on philosophical materialism which in many peoples' minds is synonymous with science.

Your posts were a very long way from clear on that point. I would actually find common ground in criticism of the common view that philosophical materialism and science are synonymous. And, I would (naturally since I'm a theist) have many criticisms of philosophical materialism - though we may differ on the nature of our criticisms.

However, much of what you have written here is totally irrelevant to that aim. Issues with publication of null results, and with the peer review process, for example.

And, though I can see how your claim that "UK science education is predicated on an assumption of materialism ... British scientists are overwhelmingly on message with a Dawkinsian world view." is relevant to your position, that is a statement that needs some serious support. Because, as I said, I've spent my adult life in UK science education (as a student, and then as a researcher - with some short periods in Japan) and I still don't recognise that description. Of course science is based on a form of materialism, but it's a pragmatic rather than philosophical position. Science can not proceed if every unexpected result is attributed to a non-material entity. As famously declared we have no need of a God-hypothesis in seeking to understand the physical universe. It doesn't follow that therefore we're all philosophical materialists.

And, especially among the few bioscientists I know, Dawkins is more oftenly held in contempt than reverence. Most of us look at his early works and admire the clarity with which he described evolution and associated biochemistry, then start banging our heads on the wall as he extrapolates from that to his philosophical position - even more so those who have some philosophy of science in our background (I would also agree that we fail our students in not including philosophy of science within our undergraduate courses).

quote: If Dead Horses is a sceptical materialist bulwark in what I took to be an Anglican website

The Ship is a majority Christian site, but it's not Anglican. It's probable that although Anglicans are likely to be the biggest single grouping they'll be a minority as we have a large number of Catholics, Orthodox, Presbyterians, Methodists, Reformed and other Christians, as well as people of other religions and none. I guess that misunderstanding accounts for why you chose to call Rupert Sheldrake an Anglican (he isn't, beyond being christened in the CofE which would make me an Anglican too, and I've never regularly worshipped in an Anglican church). He's also not a biochemist in any realistic sense either.

--------------------Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged

Posted
It seems there are misunderstandings on both sides. In my post at 16:22 I said "It may be if the scientist is scrupulous in the scope of its implications, but becomes pseudoscience if he publishes what he expects to find." In the context of the previous discussion I thought it self evident that I was inferring pseudoscience in publishing "only" what he expects to find, abandoning any other result as contaminated. This is a real problem for physical science, as it builds a world view that niche results are typical, rewards those that are on message, and removes challenges to orthodoxy by setting the bar higher on the basis that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", a thoroughly unscientific approach to methodology.

I do believe materialism is an a priori assumption of contemporary science, not least in education, and can site a number of scientists who agree that's the case. Let's be clear, philosophical materialism is the position that matter exhausts and explains reality in its entirety. It rejects any other factor as erroneous and superfluous, and in that sense it is ideological, a position manifested by endless flame wars between followers of "science" and "believers". Note quotation marks.

Richard Dawkins is one of the protagonists in this ideological approach to science, a mantle taken up by other scientists which I listed, but also cultural commentators, journalists, comedians, et al who are increasingly vocal in laying the world's errors at the feet of Believers and its salvation in Atheist Materialism. This despite the body count of institutional atheists regimes (societies that enforce atheism at the point of a gun) far outweighing religiously inspired or backed wars.

I assumed Ship of Fools was a principally Anglican site, plus Others. You are incorrect in your observations re. Rupert Sheldrake, he is a practicing Anglican and attendee at his local church. He is also an esteemed biologist with a stellar career in academia and research, who fell fowl of the mainstream by introducing the idea of mind into a physicalist hegemony for which such notions were toxic. The former Editor of Nature demanded his book was burned as heresy. That is what people who introduce consciousness to an unconscious universe can expect.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by romanesque: I do believe materialism is an a priori assumption of contemporary science, not least in education, and can site a number of scientists who agree that's the case. Let's be clear, philosophical materialism is the position that matter exhausts and explains reality in its entirety.

I would distinguish between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism.

Methodological naturalism is a variant on Occam's razor. If you can explain phenomena in terms of matter, forces, and mathematical entities that you're already using in your physics then you do so. All things being equal you prefer an explanation without action-at-a-distance, such as Descartes' vortices, to an explanation with action-at-a-distance, such as Newton's mechanics. In that case, all things weren't equal and Newton won out.

Metaphysical naturalism is indeed an arguably unwarranted extension of the principle from a pragmatic guideline to a philosophical position. (I believe most scientists would reject metaphysical naturalism at the level of mathematical entities and scientific laws. Scientists tend to be realists about the things they're investigating.)

quote:Originally posted by Net Spinster: Even brilliant scientists can have daft ideas; self-delusion is always possible (read about n-rays) which is one reason peer review has to happen.

This ship besides being diverse in religious viewpoints is also geographically diverse (though primarily from the anglophone world).

Conversely, the history of science is littered with ideas that were rejected out of hand to be subsequently proven, including, disease spread by germs, bacteria causing stomach ulcers, continental drift, Boltzmann's atomic theory, etc. Some will cite this as evidence that science is self correcting, but it could have saved itself a few hundred years and any number of careers by adopting an open mind. In the case of materialism it may defer any correction permanently by only looking for and confirming observations that fulfil its prejudices. Dean Radin is doing some excellent meta-analysis on the influence of mind in the material with compelling data.. for those who care to do their "homework".
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

Posted
Incidentally, not all atheists are materialists. There are a number who take part in the debates over consciousness, who are dualists. The most famous example is David Chalmers who (I think) coined the term 'the hard problem of consciousness'.

Another well-known example is Nagel, whose book 'Mind and Cosmos' appears to argue for the non-theistic dualism of matter and mind.

It is a hard problem, although one should also mention those who argue from incredulity - I don't understand consciousness, therefore God.

quote:I would distinguish between methodological naturalism and metaphysical naturalism...Scientists tend to be realists about the things they're investigating.) [/QB]

I would distinguish between pragmatic realism and primitive realism. One is subject to parsimony, the other wields Occam's razor like an executioner's axe.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged

quote:Originally posted by quetzalcoatl: Incidentally, not all atheists are materialists. There are a number who take part in the debates over consciousness, who are dualists. The most famous example is David Chalmers who (I think) coined the term 'the hard problem of consciousness'.

Another well-known example is Nagel, whose book 'Mind and Cosmos' appears to argue for the non-theistic dualism of matter and mind.

It is a hard problem, although one should also mention those who argue from incredulity - I don't understand consciousness, therefore God.

It generally comes down to what one means by God. For an Idealist mind is primary and all matter a manifestation off it. Therefore mind-at-large might be something very like God. A Panpsychist adopts a similar but subtly different approach, believing all matter is conscious, though not necessarily what a human might mean by conscious. Some (especially the more polemical variety of atheist IME) get no further than a Renaissance fresco of God, a grumpy, hung-over dude with an accusing finger and a casual approach to personal grooming. An embodiment of all the more challenging bits of the OT, in a down at heel artist's model.

The problem of consciousness is indeed a hard one as Chalmers' indicated, as there is no viable mechanism by which consciousness emerges from unconscious matter. This has lead more thoughtful materialists (Daniel Dennett in particular) to conclude we cannot be conscious at all, and the illusion is simply smoke from the biological machine. Most side step the issue by insisting consciousness emerges by the process of conscious emergence, and leave the details to the devil. The important thing to remember is scientifically speaking, no one has a bleeding clue and no amount of patrician dismissal or hand waving lends their theories any more weight than the bloke in the chip shop.
Posts: 119 | Registered: May 2017
| IP: Logged